Doomed
to fail from the start, now it is a surprise to kleptocrats like Dijsselbloem
that Greece can’t keep up? Come on guys, that was the plan from the start!
Bratislava (AFP)
– Eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem on Friday warned Athens to swiftly
deliver on overdue reforms as its massive bailout programme fell off track.
“The pressure
is back on. We really need some progress. The summer is over, pack up the
camping gear,” Dijsselbloem, who leads the group of 19 finance ministers from
the eurozone, told reporters in Bratislava.
Greece is
struggling to deliver on fresh reforms that are needed to unlock a further
2.8 billion euros ($3 billion) in bailout loans and more crucially, launch
negotiations on debt relief later in the year.
Athens has
committed to deliver on the refroms by the end of the month. They include the
long delayed launch of a massive privatisation fund and reforms in the highly
sensitive energy sector.
The influential
German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, said Greece still had a short
period of time to get back in line on its 86 billion euro bailout programme,
bitterly agreed in July 2015.
“They have to
do this until the end of September, so there is still time for Greece,”
Schaeuble said.
The eurozone
ministers met in the Slovak capital as Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras,
an anti-austerity champion, hosted a mini-summit between the European Union’s
seven Mediterranean states in Athens.
Schaeuble belittled
the summit as a political meeting of “socialist party leaders”.
“And when
socialist party leaders meet, most of the time, nothing intelligent comes out
of it,” he added.
